Is it normal for GCSE's to be sat at the end of Year 9?

[adelicatequestion]

DD school is planning for 2 or 3 GCSE's to be sat in a year at the end of yr9 and another 2/3 at teh end of yr 10 and then some in yr 11. They could end up with about 15 GCSE's.

So questions

Why?
Is it done elsewhere? It's new to me
Aren't they too young?
Will it compromise grades?
Is that many GCSE's really necessary?

Gosh I have lots of questions.

We have an info evening soon and I want to be ready with teh pro's and cons of this.

They do that in the grammar school near me

No, the school isn;t going to do diplomas.

They are clearly directing themselves as an academic school.

I wonder if this is to benefit the students or the school though.

Personally I'd rather DD got 10 A's than 18 B's.

It also seems that if they chose say French/German to do in yr 9 then they can;t do french in yr 10, so if they want to do A level languages they may have a year or two gap in between - how daft is that?

Love to hear from any teachers as to whether they think this is good. I know a music teacher who doesn;t like it.

Reassuring that it's done elsewhere. Does it work though?

I am not a huge fan of doing this, I would rather pupils studied widely rather than clocking up extra GCSEs.

It does happen though.

My Dd's school have taken this route. Dd will study her core subjects of Triple Science,Maths&statistics, English&Lit, RE, ICT and PE over 3 years and will do an option subject every year. My worry is the maturity of DC's in yr9 to be able to handle the academic demands of a GCSE course and being able to organise themselves for revision etc. Dd will be taking an option plus Statistics next year. Dd will only just be 14 the day she collects her results slip. Personally I'd have gone with taking two options over two years and introduced the 3rd in yr11. Dd won't be taking any more GCSES then she would have been doing over the traditional two year KS4. The range of courses on offer however has improved from what was on offer last year and the young Scientist in residence came home raving about the fact Geology was on offer. Options evening is next months so I haven't got the full list of choices but DD has told me that you can change options in future years so at least the choices DD makes at 12 are not cast in stone.

Are they doing just a few modules or whole GCSE exams in Year 9?

At my Dd's school they will do a whole GCSE in Yr9.

Same here.

They do double the nunmber of hours and complete the gcse in a year.

I do wonder about the logic of this. When I was at school, in the Dark Ages, we took O Levels at teh end of Y11. They were taken once only (no re-sits) and all together (as a test of how many subjects could you hold in your brain at one time. anyone can get a gazillion GCSE if you take one-a-year for the next gazillion years). Thus they were a marker of how good your sixteen year old brain was.
Doesn't it devalue GCSE if schools say that they are capable of being paased (with a decent grade) by Y9 students?

My DD has started GCSE science modules in year 9. The school says it's so they have more time to cover the curriculum and allows more time for retakes.

She struggles with science and needs more time to assimilate the basic knowledge that underpins GCSE science. Having skipped year 9 science doesn't help at all (I have actually bought her the year 9 science revision guide to help and there's so much she doesn't know as it hasn't been covered.)

I have no doubt that she will need to retake most of her Science modules from year 9. If she had followed a proper year 9 science course and started GCSE in year 10 that probably wouldn't be necessary.

"The school says it ... allows more time for retakes."

This is so WRONG! Schools should not be teaching kids the mentality that it is OK to mess things up because you can always do a re-take.
Real life (universities, employers etc) is not so forgiving and, anyway, it is such a waste of their time. So much better to "do it once and do it right".

I agree

I am trying to teach my children to value learning and to have pride in what they do and to do their best. The schools are just setting them up for an even bigger shock when they hit working life and they have to do things right first time.

Is this where the " I don't really care, it's not that important attitude stems from"

Sadly, all students are in the sausage machine. as a teacher, actually I think lots of students would be better of taking GCSEs in year 9 - hormones have not fully kicked in yet and many are still relatively keen and enthusiastic!
However, while the Government continues to use ridiculous league tables to judge schools, and as long as parents continue to judge schools by these standards, it will continue to happen - it will vastly increase the number of 'points' schools get if pupils come out with a string of GCSEs.
this is why it is so important (I think) for teenagers to be doing things outside of school as well - voluntary work, duke of Edinburgh, sports, anything really to make them stand out a little. It is sad, particularly as they may leave school with a string of qualifications, but still unable to spell correctly.

Also, actually, universities are having to be more like this now. the consumer society is having a massive impact on the level of university qualifications - as stuents have to pay so much nowadays, they 'expect' a certain level of degre, and are given far more opportunities to achieve it than we were given. These are obviously all my own opinions, and others will disagree, I am sure.

Apologies for my typos - my keyboard has weirdly insensitive keys!

I worked for years in a college and left after seeing the poor standard of students who were being accepted into university. They couldn;t even write a paragraph of correctly written text.

I am all for more access to universities - but to people who meet the required standard.

This is why colleges and now universities are having to teach maths and English.

When I went to university you couldn;t get in unless you had maths and english. now you can with grade d's which to be honest is what dd was doing aged 12.

I totally agree. I remember being absolutely flabberghasted when an English student teacher (as in subject, not nationality!) joked and thought it funny that she couldn't spell! She took real offence when I said I thought it was a pretty basic requisite to be able to spell, in order to teach children how to communicate. Apparently not - there's 'so much more to it than that'!

I do highlight and correct lots of spelling mistakes in my students' work (secondary science) - if they complain i say I'm happy not to do it, but it will reflect badly on them when they apply for jobs etc. They are usually quite grateful to be corrected. They are often amazed that I can spell and that I am bothered by it - but you're a science teacher, Miss!

It will be enough to drive me from the teaching profession.

Our (grammar) school doesn't do any early GCSEs at all.
They think 10 good academic GCSEs obtained in one sitting is better than 15 over 3 years !

Oh and DS2 in Y7 has 2 people in his class who already have passed a GCSE while at primary school